At an inquest into his death, Northern Territory corrections and health departments on Monday apologised to the family of Wayne Hunt for the way he was treated and told Coroner Elisabeth Armitage that procedural changes would be made.
Mr Hunt was only days into a sentence for dangerous driving causing death when the incident occurred at the Darwin Correctional Centre on August 29, 2024.
He had just turned 56 and was deemed fit enough to serve his sentence.
Mary Chalmers, counsel assisting the coroner, said Mr Hunt's assessment by health workers and treatment by prison officers would be examined.
Two nurses and prison guards attended when a "code blue" medical emergency was called when Mr Hunt had his seizure but his post-seizure agitation was interpreted by Corrections staff as behavioural non-compliance, Ms Chalmers told the inquest.
Instead of being taken to a prison health centre for a medical assessment Mr Hunt was taken in handcuffs and a spit hood to an "at-risk" cell where he was "stripped naked and left lying on the floor", she said.
Overnight he was kept on suicide watch by officers rather than being observed by medical staff.
Mr Hunt was found unresponsive on the floor of the cell the next morning and he effectively never regained consciousness, with his life support switched off in hospital two days later.
Ms Chalmers said Mr Hunt's family and the community needed to know how it was that a comparatively healthy 56-year-old man who went into custody with his medications was dead within three days.
Mr Hunt was a butcher by trade but lost a leg and suffered a brain injury in a motorbike accident in 2008.
In December 2022, Mr Hunt was driving his ute in a supermarket car park when he accidentally hit and killed an 11-year-old boy.
He had been using cannabis and pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death, earning him a sentence of three months.
On release he was given a further nine months in jail when prosecutors appealed the first sentence as inadequate.
Days into that sentence the August 2024 incident occurred.
Ms Chalmers said "confronting" body-camera footage would be shown at the inquest of Mr Hunt's move to the at-risk room and was not what the community expected from agencies responsible for the care of people in custody, particularly a disabled man who suffered a seizure.
Lawyer Michael McCarthy, appearing for the NT Corrections Department, said the department acknowledged the pain and grief felt by Mr Hunt's family.
He said officers involved acknowledged they had acted unprofessionally and regretted they way they had behaved.
Lawyer Paul Morgan read a statement by Mr Hunt's wife Rhonda Phillpps saying they were together 20 years and her husband, with no children of his own, had been a great father to her children and 18 grandchildren.
"Everybody loved Wayne to bits ... if anyone needed help Wayne would be there for them."
Ms Phillips said Mr Hunt was deeply remorseful about killing the boy at the supermarket.
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